Tuesday, 5 July 2011

Questions

I've spent a lot of time recently contemplating my Ashtanga practice - and more specifically whether or not it does in fact promote 'yogic' values, or perhaps quite the opposite.

Last Friday I attended a day of talks and meditation on 'the joy of yoga' with Swami Nityamuktananda and Swami Veda Bharati. It was an inspiring and humbling experience to be in the presence of such wise and profoundly spiritual people and the biggest take away for me was that asana practice really does represent only a very limited aspect of yoga. In theory this information wasn't new to me, as I'm sure it won't be for most people reading this blog, but the way in which both Swami Nityamuktananda and Swami Veda Bharati really brought this understanding home had a profound and slightly unsettling effect which to an extent has made me question why it is that I spend an hour and a half a day pushing myself so hard in asana practice.

I also started my yoga teacher training over the weekend and again, this has caused me to reflect on the nature of my practice. Unsurprisingly, one of the main messages of the training was 'safety' - ensuring that you are extremely mindful of helping students avoid injury by paying attention to correct posture and allowing them to work within their limits. Ahimsa (non violence) is one of the yamas that comprise one of the 8 limbs of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and yet...show me an ashtangi who hasn't caused violence to him or herself through an overly zealous approach to their practice (knees being a common casualty!). Certain teachers too, in trying to crush students into various postures, have been responsible for causing serious injuries - is that what yoga is really all about?

It's a fairly common event for my fellow ashtangis and I to discuss a litany of injuries picked up during practice in the changing room of the yoga studio - of course this is usually accompanied by the standard platitudes of 'learning from injury' (which I do in fact believe is very important) and resolutions to practice more mindfully in future (again good - if you stick to your intentions). On my Twitter feed too, it seems that not a week goes by without one of the ashtangis talking about an injury that they've sustained - and I even read that Sharath Jois is currently only practicing 1st series due to injury...although I should say that I have no knowledge whether or not this is actually true.

Yoga asana is a physical practice and so of course injuries are likely to occur, but it does seem to me at least that they seem to affect ashtangis far more than the average yoga practitioner and I think that this is due to 2 things. Firstly the impulse to practice a rigorous series of postures on a more or less daily basis which possibly drives the body to exhaustion; secondly, that the traditional Mysore approach prohibits practitioners from progressing in the series until they have mastered all asana postures up to that point.

Non attachment - to both objects and the outcome of our actions - is another key tenet of yoga, and yet I wonder whether both the regularity and traditional series based approach to Ashtanga may actually lead to further attachment...at least for the average Western mind?

Fellow ashtangis will know what I'm talking about - if you want to see them freak out, you just have to tell them that they're going to have to miss practice tomorrow. Most ashtangis (me included, I'll admit) are almost fanatical about their daily practice and will go to extreme lengths to ensure that they don't miss a session on the mat - even when they're injured or when their exhausted body is telling them that they should really rest instead. This doesn't smack of 'non attachment'...

And the focus on always trying to achieve the next posture (for me right now - and for the last few months - it's Marichyasana D) can also lead to a great deal of attachment to the results of our actions (it also leads to people pushing their bodies too far, too soon). You just have to witness the excitement of an ashtangi who's finally accomplished a particular asana and been given new postures to add to the series. Of course that's part of the challenge - to react to success and failure with the same steadiness of mind - but again I wonder if Ashtanga can sometimes work against the very values that it's trying to promote, at least within an already overly 'goal oriented' culture.

Asana practice is a beautiful and essential part of my life - I love it and I feel very fortunate to have found it. It helps our bodies to stay strong and supple, to stimulate the flow of energy, to improve our breathing and to concentrate and calm the mind. It improves our health and equanimity, helps us deal with the challenges that life puts in our way and allows us to move towards a greater awareness of ourselves and others. Without it our lives would certainly be less fulfilling - but do we really need to push ourselves to extremes to realise these benefits? I hope not...

YB

P.S. I'd hate for anyone to think that I'm speaking on behalf of anyone else with some of the comments and generalisations I've made above - that's certainly not my intention. This post is really just a stream of consciousness that attempts to outline some of my observations, thoughts and reflections on my own approach to practice, which may need adjusting. I'm not sure if there are any actual answers to the points I've raised, but I'd love to hear the thoughts and feedback of my fellow yogis.

6 comments:

I sure hope not too!!! Lately I have been working on letting go of poses in order to a- have more energy with backbends which is my current challenge, and b- also to have more energy to practice the other limbs, like pranayama some meditation...

I agree with you that as ashtangis it is a little hard to find balance, nor overdo it, and remember the goal is peace or union. Depending on what root of the word you go by , word being yoga...

My theory: because it is very challenging and because it is very routinized, Ashtanga tends to attract a certain type, a type that needs to learn that particular lesson about finding balance and not pushing beyond certain limits. Having started yoga with an Ashtanga practice in my fifties, I too learned through injury, but I like to think, through the perspective of age, I learned more quickly. After all, I have a very different sense of what practice over the next 10 or 20 years may look like, and I want to be there, on my mat, maybe not day in and day out without fail, and maybe not always adding asanas, but regularly, consistently, wonderfully, learning from the process and keeping my body mind and spirit clear and strong. Ashtanga yoga doesn't have to be "ambition yoga". It's up to each of us how we learn from this teacher of infinite aspect and depth.

From a personal perspective, I think I need to be more mindful of the need to achieve balance and less focussed on 'progressing' on to different asanas. We're so lucky to have this practice in our lives - so I think much better to practice mindfully and gently every day, than trying to push ourselves too far too quickly and risking hurting ourselves (and not being able to practice at all).

i am a newcomer to this world of ashtanga and i can't agree more. i started doing it several months back and as i got more into it, i introduced the 6-day practice soon after starting. however, only recently i realized that every single ashtangi i talked to was dealing with pain and injuries at almost any given point and took it as something very normal and expected. this made me wander if that was worth it? i got spooked by hearing the knee stories. luckily (in a way) i am stuck at Mary A as i can't manage half-lotus as yet for Mary B. this is making me slow down and work on the practice up to that point. i do agree with Fran as well - i think it is a certain type of people that get attracted to ashtanga as i already feel hooked and upset if i skip a day of practice. not very 'non-attachment' and 'ahimsa' ;-) also, it makes me ask myself is it worth pushing yourself to only have to go back once you injure yourself? how i approach it: i try to read anatomy and tips from more mature ashtangis. ivana